Here’s a post, featuring a letter to the Christian Science Monitor, that I offered at the Cafe on Earth Day 2005; I apologize that the link below no longer works:
Check out this political cartoon appear today — “Earth Day” — in the Christian Science Monitor.
Here’s a letter that I sent in response:
22 April 2005
Editor, The Christian Science Monitor
Dear Editor:
Clay Bennett’s Earth Day cartoon shows scissors (labeled “White House”) recklessly slicing through environmental statutes. Without here questioning the merits of the statutes or the reality of the slicing, I plead for protection of a most endangered resource: perspective. Pause for a moment to appreciate just how clean and safe our everyday environments are compared to those of our ancestors.
– Refrigeration keeps our food free of bacterial pollution;
– indoor plumbing immediately whisks away our own waste;
– household detergents clean our homes of germs and grime;
– automobiles keep our streets clean of horse manure and the swarms of flies it attracts;
– antibiotics and other medicines protect our bodies from many diseases, such as tuberculosis, that were major killers just a century ago.In fact, our everyday lives are more sanitary and healthier today than at any time in history.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
